Short Story Fridays

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Short Story: On The Hot Seat | By: Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

The studio went dim, and then there was that sound that has
become the trademark of the game show. Then it was all silent. I felt my grip
on the arms of the black swivel chair popularly known as the hot seat, tighten.
“The
next question is for one million” the moderator said, his eyes on the screen in
front of him.
My
eyes too stared eagerly at the flat screen in front of me. I could make out a
million tiny particles dancing along the lines of white rays from the screen.
They seemed like the bubbles in a chilled glass of beer. A million golden
bubbles which I always took time to admire when I was at the bar. I was playing
for a million Naira. That was my mark. I could see the cheque with the six
zeros being handed over to me.  I wanted to reach out and grab it. An army
was marching in the area where my heart used to be.
“On what date was Murtala Mohammed killed…?” the moderators voice jolted me back to
reality. The question echoed in my head even as I read it again on the screen
before me. I wasn’t seeing a million tiny particles anymore. All I saw was a
question and a set of four options. After reading the question and the option
for the third time in a minute, I knew I did not know the answer. The boot
soles banging against the left part of my chest grew in threshold.
“Do you have any idea Mr. Ben Okafor?” There was a grin on the face of the
moderator. He alone could see the confusion written all over my face. I made a
sound in my throat which neither said ‘yes’ nor ‘no’. It was the best I could
mutter at the moment. My eyes were going from one option to the other,
searching for the slightest clue.
“First of all, do you know who Murtala
Mohammed is?” The moderator was a
very witty fellow. His question sounded more like asking a primary six pupil
what the name of his school was. I could hear the audience giggle. I didn’t
think I needed to answer that, so I just giggled too.
Of
course I knew who Murtala Mohammed was. He was that ominous head on the twenty
naira note. The airport in Lagos was named after him. The long bridge in Lokoja
also bore his name. I knew his middle name was Ramat. As a child, my school
once went on an excursion to the museum in Lagos and we had been shown the
Peugeot car he was being driven in on the day the bullet of a lone shooter took
life out of him. I knew that the name of this shooter was Dimka. I knew that
after his death, Obasanjo took over power. I knew he took the first step
towards moving the Federal Capital to Abuja. I knew he died in 1976. All the
options before me bore 1976. But I did not know the exact day he died.
“Any idea?”
I
ran my left hand through my hair, scratching at nothing in particular at the
base of my skull. That was my way of saying “No idea”
“Well, you still have a lifeline. Don’t you
think you should use it or would you prefer to simply walk away?”
I
looked from the screen to the moderator. He was young and handsome. For years I
had watched this show from the comfort of my uncle’s sitting room admiring not
just the wit with which he had transformed the show to the most popular in the
country, but also his well tailored designer suits which held on to him like a
spoon against another. They were those kinds of suits that had price tags that
ran like telephone numbers in city boutiques. I had always longed to wear those
kinds of suits. With one million, I could now afford them. I was going to take
all my chances.
“Phone a friend” I replied.
“Ok. Mr. Ben has chosen to use his last
lifeline” the moderator thundered. “Which of your friends do you want to call?”
“Ben” I replied
“O, your namesake. I see. So let’s call Ben
and see if he can save his fellow Ben who is on the hot seat.”
There was a brief lull, as the computer dialed the number. I
took the opportunity to say a Hail Mary. First, I
did the sign of the cross, before mumbling the lines of the prayer I had not
said in a long while. As a child, I always said it when I was in trouble and
about to be whipped. I would mumble the lines of the prayer, seeking a miracle.
I always got whipped anyway.
“…your friend Ben is on the hot seat and needs
you to help him answer a question to win a sum of one million naira.” There was
a note of excitement in the moderator’s voice. “The next voice you will hear
will be Ben’s voice. You have only twenty seconds to furnish him with the
answer. Your time starts now.”
I
read out the question trying to be as clear as possible. From the episodes I
had watched from home, I had noticed that the time was never enough for the
contestants to sufficiently repeat the options to their helper’s hearing. More
so, the options were in themselves a source of confusion. The trick I had
concluded was to read out just the question and if the helper really knew the
answer, he would just say it. That was what I did.
“13th March 1976” Came the smart reply
just as I finished reading out the question the first time. It was the option
“C” on the screen.
With
some time left on my hands, I took the liberty of asking how sure he was. He
affirmed that he was certain. There was a bold smile on my face by the time the
call ended. I could now see my one million Naira clearly.  The marching in
my chest reduced in wavelength.
“How…well…do…you…know this Ben?” The moderator crossed and uncrossed his leg,
dragging the words as he spoke. His hands were folded against his chest.
“I know him very well” I replied, nodding and smiling.
“How long have you known him?”
“For about seven years.”
“Seven years! Hmmm…”
“I met him in the University” I added.
“O, I see. You must trust him very much then?”
If there was anybody I trusted to get the answer to such a
question right, it was Ben.  We met at a football pitch one morning during
my freshman years. He had come around with leather boots in hand looking for a
game. As the pro tem captain of the day, he
approached me to ask if he could join us. After the game he came to say thanks
and to introduce himself. We had played on the same side and our combination
had gelled well in the defense for our side.
After
finding out that we were namesakes, he requested for my GSM number. I asked him
if he had a pen.
“I don’t need one” he replied. “I will remember it”.
Knowing
that had his name not been “Ben” too, I would have forgotten it shortly after
our handshake, I was certain he would forget the number before he got
home. 
To
my amazement, later that evening he called me. That was the first of his memory
feats that I would experience. I would get to know he was the best student in
the History Department and that there was hardly any date of any historically
relevant event he couldn’t give off with ease. He was yet to disappoint me and
even on this day, he had given an answer without asking what the options were.
I trusted him very much.
“So you are going with this your Ben friend?
Remember, if you fail this, you will be crashing back to two hundred and fifty
thousand naira. But you have the option of walking away with your five hundred
thousand Naira.” The Moderator sounded
so concerned. I could make out that trademark mischievous smile of his with
which he toyed with the sensibilities of contestants. Sometimes, it was a wise
caution.  Other times it led astray. I was certain it was not a wise caution
this time.
I
nodded. My eyes scanned the options again. The drumming in my chest was
resumed. To push any emerging doubt away, I nodded again.
“Alright, so your final answer is C then?” The Moderator asked sitting up.
A
million thoughts sped through my mind. I suddenly wished to use the toilet. I
wished we went on a commercial break. I wished I had paid more attention to my
Nigerian History class. I wished I had another lifeline to use. The million
particles from the screen blinded my view.
Just
as I stepped out of the studio and had the opportunity of switching my phone
back on, I immediately received an SMS from Ben. It was an apology. The date of
Murtala Mohammed’s assassination was actually 13th February 1976. It had
occurred to him just after the call ended. He hoped he had not cost so much
damage.
I
smiled as I returned the phone into my pocket. My cheque of five hundred
thousand Naira was safe in my wallet.  He really didn’t do any damage. I
had been wise enough to walk away at the last minute.

Credit:  Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

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 Sylva Nze Ifedigbo is
a 2007 graduate of Veterinary Medicine, UNN. He won the Short Story prize in
the Abuja Writers’ Forum Literary contest (2009) and 2nd Prize in the ASUU
National Undergraduates Short Story Competition in 2006. Spectrum Books
published his novella, Whispering Aloud in 2007. He contributes to many online
forums and dailies.

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Email: loladevilleblog@gmail.com or [email protected]
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Short Story: Shaking Hands With Death | By: Thandiubani

So they came four in number brandishing guns and threatening our lives.
It was a Saturday night in our beautiful home, Mama and Papa had me as their only child. I was still in my late teens when the tale i am about to tell took place. It has been years yet it has not healed. It is still as if it happened yesterday.

‘Shut your dirty mouth’ shouted the short man with a long gun.

‘You ought to have kept enough money for us,
‎
N500,000 is chicken change’ he barked at Papa who lay face-down hugging the earth out of fear. Mama wore a silk night-gown still looking beautiful in her late thirties. As fair as a goddess, Mama lay face-down near Papa trembling. Her hands spread and face pointing to the floor.

Papa worked as the General Manager of a top bank and had fleet of cars. He was indeed a rich man.
As they jerked Papa up hitting him with the base of their gun, tears ran down my cheeks.
I began to tremble not knowing the unthinkable was about to happen.
Papa went into the room with two of the four armed-robbers, I prayed in my heart that he should check inside the pillow in my room which had the
N900,000 I was supposed to have paid into his brother’s account for her mother’s sick bills. But I dared not utter a word as I kissed the floor with my face tight-hugging the rug and eyes shut.
Suddenly, I heard Mama shout and scream in pains as Papa rushed out of the room in anger. He rushed under the drawer near the big flat screen TV and pulled his revolver, pointed at the short, dark and ugly armed-robber who sandwiched his bare manhood in between Mama’s legs. The bullet pierced the armed-robber’s back and sent him crashing to the floor with a painful shout as he dropped dead. 
Another bullet went off from the revolver as it caught the other armed-robber who was busy emptying our liquor since they entered the house. He was sitting on the big chair facing the liquor bar. The bullet caught his heart and came out through the other side of his body. The big bottle of Heineken in his hand dropped with a loud boom. He fell to the ground writhing in pain before he gave up the ghost.
It was then that I saw Papa crashing to the floor as the revolver dropped from his hand. With eyes dripping of tears, thoughts incoherent, mind lost to pain and a half closed eyes, Papa’s bullet ridden body gave up the ghost in no time.
The scenario refused to fit into my mind. I was still mouth-agape thinking of what I had just witnessed when I fainted.
Four armed-robbers came to our house, one of them forced his way into Mama, Papa out of anger shot two of them dead, Mama lay on the floor unconscious, Papa shot dead by one of the armed-robbers as they fled our house.
Many years have passed still I have vengeance written all over me. Mama died the next month. She never recovered from the trauma. Each time I remember all these events, I just feel like another walking corpse but one day I will revenge!


Credit: Thandiubani, 
naijastories.com 
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platform? Be our guest on our Short Story Fridays segment.
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Amara is Impregnated — Amara (Pt. 3) | By: Oluwafunminiyi Omojola

(We bring you the concluding part of the Amara series. If you missed the first two parts. Click here and here)

Seven months had passed since the day she learned she was pregnant. Amara briefly caught her reflection in front of the mirror. She could barely recognize the wizened looking creature that stared back at her. The description that fit her best was ‘gaunt’. Her hair was what women called ‘due’ and unkempt. It stood erect, on end, forming what looked like two bushy, black horns on either side of her head. She hadn’t touched it with a comb or cream in the seven months Julius had dumped her in the lodge. 
Her complexion had gone from fair, to ashy and now to black, and when she opened her mouth, her cheeks collapsed into two bottomless chasms on either side of her face. Her shoulders were bony, the ball and socket joints of them sticking out of the blue off-shoulder gown that she wore. Her breasts were fuller, and somewhat flabbier.  She was not wearing a brassiere, so they laid like two timid lambs on the mountain that was her stomach. A sickening smell always oozed from a part of her body that she was yet to identify. She had entered the ninth month, was always in a permanent state of discomfort. 
The baby was always twisting and turning. It seemed that it held a cord in her chest that it yanked at will. And when it did that, a bell rang in her head. She would have to sit up, and gasp for breath. 

“It is boys that disturb like that,” one of the girls had told her. 

“You are lucky. They will pay you more, maybe twenty thousand naira.” 


‎That was another thing she had come to learn in this house of horror. When she had told Julius that she was pregnant, he had surprised her with his reaction. She had expected him to rave and rant and push her out of his apartment. But no, he had just smiled and made her sit on his knees. 

“Obi’m, how did you let that happen?” he asked gently as she sobbed. 

“I expected you to know better than that, to protect yourself.” 
‎
“I’m sorry Jay,” she had pleaded through sobs, her face in her palms. She had heard the rustle of paper as Julius flicked the test report in his hand. 

“It says eight weeks, here. And you say you do not want an abortion, eh?” She had shaken her head. 

“What do you want us to do about it then, Obi’m?” he asked, wiping her tears with a perfumed, polka dotted handkerchief. Since they loved each other, she was willing to put her academic ambitions on hold for a year or two, get married to Julius and have their baby. Julius had burst into a wild sounding kind of laughter when she had voiced those plans. 

He laughed so hard that he unconsciously pushed her away from him, fell from the chair and sat heavily onto the rug. He pointed at her, spittle drooling from one side of his mouth. She had never seen him look or act that way before, and she had been a little shocked. What was he laughing at? Her? Or had she said something out of turn? She stood there for minutes looking at him, her arms folded across her breasts as the sun outside faded from a dull yellow tone to a blurry red. 

“Okay, okay dear. No problem, no problem at all. Marriage it is then. This is how shit’ll work. Tomorrow, I will take you to see my parents. Since your father will most likely not want anything to do with you anymore, I bet you can stay with my parents until all the arrangements have been concluded for igbankwu. You can probably tell only Ada about it all, since she seems like a sport. Everything will be fine,” Julius had assured her, pulled her down onto the rug beside him, and before she could voice her concerns, filled her with his throbbing member. His emphatic love making had answered all her questions convincingly – all would be well. It was that evening that she had told Ada she was pregnant, and Ada had walked out on her. Even as she dressed up to go to school the next day, Ada had refused to listen to her, turning her face rigidly to the wall and yelling at her to 

‘Si ebea puo – get lost.” And she did. Julius had driven her to the maternity lodge the next day. They made the three hour journey to the interior parts of Enugu in utter silence. She was not in a chatty mood anyway, and it seemed Julius too had a lot on his mind, probably in preparation for his new roles, as a father and a husband. The road was very bad, and they passed only a handful of people on their way- children in bright uniforms, carrying chairs and desks on their heads, farmers on bicycles, and a few lorries and other vehicles going to and from the villages.

 They finally arrived at about 11.30 am to the walled compound. Amara wondered why the walls were so high but she did not say anything. It was the only modern building in the community, and Amara put it down to Julius’ considerable wealth. A good son had to make his parents comfortable. An old man opened the gates for their car, and Amara felt her spirit sink for no clear reason when the gates swung close behind their car. The compound was big and wide, with gravel on the grounds. The building was big too, a pink colored one storey affair with black iron burglar proofs and verandas. 

“Get down,” Julius ordered her as the car came to a halt. She complied. She looked behind her and saw the old gateman still standing at the gate, a look Amara could not quite place plastered on his ancient face. He just stood there and stared at her, and then he made a sign with his hands, mouthed something and ambled into the gate-house as Julius climbed out of the car. Amara did not need a soothsayer at this point to tell her that something was amiss, a feeling that was confirmed when they entered the building. 

Pregnant young girls milled around the large empty space downstairs. The place smelled like a hospital, and Amara had panicked, thinking at first that Julius had brought her here for an abortion. He held her by the hand as they walked past the first room, a gesture that reassured her for only a second. She could feel the eyes of the other girls following them as they walked. There was no nurse in sight. 

“Where is this place, Julius?” she asked, quietly as they climbed the stairs. 
‎
“Shh, quiet, you will see,” he had responded as he stopped by a door and knocked. Her heart was beating uncontrollably by the time handle dipped, and the door opened inwards. They stepped into what looked faintly like a doctor’s office. The furnishing was sparse – with two seats to the side and against the wall. There was a patient’s bed with dark red stains on the brown leather mattress. In front of a window with a dark green blind sat a brown desk. On its body was pasted several stickers advertising an assortment of drugs: Octivin, PregnaCare, Chloramphenicol. 

In font of the desk perched the smallish man who had opened the door for them, his hands on the table behind him. She later grew to know him simply as Okpeten. He had grey hair and wore a pair of steel rimmed glasses. He had a bitter smile on his wrinkled face as he embraced Julius. 

“That’s her?” she heard him ask, as she settled on a chair by the wall that Julius showed to her. 
‎
“Let’s talk outside,” Julius invited the old man, whistling a tune under his breath. And turning to her, he had bent his head, a crooked smile playing on his lips, he used the tips of the fingers of his right hand to rub the middle of his chest in an up and down motion that meant for her to ‘relax’. That was the last time she had seen Julius till now although Ajuo, Okpeten’s mammoth of a wife always told her when he sent money for her upkeep, and that he would be here to see her soon. Amara snatched her gaze off the mirror and ambled out of the toilet. Her water had broken in the late afternoon. The pain was totally unbearable now. She could barely keep her thighs together. She stopped at the door, placed an arm on her waist and screamed. The door jerked open and Okpeten and Ajuo rushed towards her. Gently, they steered her into the delivery room and urged her to take it easy. Amara wailed as they laid her on the blood stained bed. 
‎
“Just take it easy, easy, easy…” Okpeten cooed, his head buried between her thighs. The room spun round and round in Amara’s eyes, and Ajuo’s watery face swam in her vision. She felt as if her waist was being severed from the rest of her body. Her vagina was on fire and she felt as if someone had taken a shovel to her innards and was digging out the contents with cruel, crunching blows. 
‎
“I’ve seen the head, I’ve seen the head,” she heard Okpeten say again and again. Suddenly, she felt something heavy clog the space between her legs before the room dissolved into a sea of darkness.


 *** 

She stood at the edge of the big metal can and took a deep breath before peering into it. Now that he was asleep and quiet, she had to be cautious not to make any noise, not to awaken him. She had searched for him all the way here, his faltering cries ringing in her ears and guiding her feet. It had been a long arduous journey and her feet ached, and bled where she had stepped on a rusty nail. The short, sturdy piece had buried itself deep into the sole of her right foot. She had screamed as she ambled to the side of the road and sat heavily on the grass. It had taken considerable energy to pull it out. Soon, the entire sole had been covered in blood. 

She had felt a bit dizzy and had to lean on a dying tree stump for support. The sun had lost its radiance, but its rays still scorched her. She had to shut her eyes for a moment, her head pounding as she lost blood. The blood continued to flow, despite her pleas and entreaties. When she felt a bit calmer, she had plucked green leaves and rubbed them between her palms until her palms had turned green. She then squeezed its water onto the wound. When the bleeding did not stop, she had rubbed the leaves themselves on the face of the wound. But the bleeding had only intensified. Using her teeth, she had torn off a long piece of her gown where there had been a hole, and tied the wound with it. That left her a bit naked in front. 

The bushy triangle between her thighs was in full glare and so was the whole of her left leg, from the thigh downwards. But, that could be taken care of later. She had to find her child. That was her first assignment. She had cut another branch off the medicinal plant and stuck it in her bushy hair, for future use. She hissed continuously as she continued her journey, stamping the aching foot on the ground as she walked. When the pain had become unbearable, she began to limp, unable to touch the affected foot to the ground. 

Everyone she met on the lonely road made way for her. Not that she approached them or talked to them or anything. No. they just made faces at each other and packed themselves to one side when they saw her, giving her all the room on the road as if she were an approaching lorry. She had been particularly annoyed by the little boy who had burst into tears when he came upon her. He could not be more than four years old and he clutched a black nylon bag in his scrawny fingers. His knickers were torn and his ribs stuck out in his chest, creating a hollow stomach that gasped as he sniveled. ‎

“Emeka! What are you doing here?” She had screamed, pleasantly surprised when she recognized him. But the poor fool kept on crying, stamping one foot after another in the reddish earth, a wet map suddenly appearing and changing dimensions in front of his knickers. “Bia, nwanne’m! Ebezina, biko, Emeka’m,” she had pleaded, saddened at his discomfort. She had approached him with her arms wide open but the boy had backed away from her, screamed, dropped the nylon bag he was holding on the ground and fled back in the direction from which he came. She just stood there, her arms stretched out in front of her, dazed. Then her eyes had fallen on the white granules that spilled from the bag the boy had dropped. 

“Garri,” she whispered to herself. Suddenly, her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten a thing in the past three days since she escaped – or since Okpeten and Ajuo had laughed in her face and pushed her out of the lodge, because she kept tearing her hair apart and asking for her baby. They had offered her money, but all she wanted was her baby. So they had cursed her and pushed her out of the lodge. She had forgotten how to be hungry, but she remembered now. She bent down, picked up the nylon, settled down by the bushes on the road side and chewed. 

She wondered where Julius was now that she needed him most, to help her fight Okpeten and Ajuo. He had left her alone for too long, for far too long. His cries became louder as she ate, so she had rounded off quickly and proceeded on her journey. His cry emanated from every single plant on the roadside, from every tree in the distance, from the grass and the sand and the stones on the road. It had been a tough job examining each and every one of these crying things. People stared at her as she did it, but she had, like Okute the rock, long learned to be unmoved, come rain or shine. She had jumped for joy when she finally came upon the garbage dump. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? What better place could Okpeten and Ajuo had chosen to hide him away from her, if not in the midst of all this waste? She was shocked then when she peered into the huge garbage container and her baby was not there. With little difficulty, she climbed into the can and rummaged. Nothing. 

She started to throw the garbage out of the can, at first painstakingly, one after the other. Then she started to heave them out in heaps. She worked for two hours before she got to the gritty bottom of the container. Still, nothing. Then she got frantic. She climbed out of the can and went to work on her knees, using her hands first like a hoe, then like a shovel. She wailed and retched as she sought her child. He was a cruel baby, keeping quiet on her, now that she was so close to finding him. She worked like a mad woman for another two hours, howling at the top of her voice. Then, disillusioned, she sat in the waste, pieces of garbage hanging in her hair and strewn all over her gaunt frame. She stretched her arms out to the crowd that had gathered and asked if any of them had seen her baby. No one answered her directly. They just murmured among themselves and shook their big heads. One of the children pointed at her and spoke rapidly to his mother who slapped his outstretched hand, and said nothing. It was Emeka. The skies began to weep and she jerked her head upwards, a stream of relief coursing through her system. 

A radiant smile spread across her face and her eyes shone with joy as she looked into the skies. Again, she should have known. Silly her, silly child. He should have let her know where he was earlier. She wrapped her arms around herself, getting as much of him as she could through his tears falling through the skies. The skies grumbled, a deep guttural sound and she buried her terror in its rasping breath. She was getting wet quickly and cold too, but it did not matter; she had found her child. The little crowd shook their large heads again and began to disperse – one after the other. She thanked each and everyone of them as they left. She sat in the downpour until she could not tell her tears from the rain. When it abated, she laid in the soggy garbage and drifted off into a troubled slumber. She dreamt of Julius, and Ada. Ada was holding a baby on her shoulders, rapidly touching her fingers to her tongue and counting from a bundle of naira notes. She and Julius were happy, laughing merrily and pointing in her direction.  ‎


‎

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Oluwafunminiyi Omojola is a writer. Follow him on twitter
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Short Story: “Shame Is Too Good For You!” — Amara (pt.2) | By: Oluwafunminiyi Omojola

(Hi Guys, if you didn’t read the part 1 of this series last week, click here. We bring you the part 2 today and the concluding part next week. Enjoy!)

**********
The second time Amara had met him was one windy evening, two weeks after their first meeting. She had been on her way home from the JAMB extra mural classes she attended every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon. He had been standing beside his shiny Mercedes Benz on her street, making a phone call and laughing and trying to light a stick from the packet of cigarettes he must have bought from Musa, the Hausa cripple who ran a small kiosk near her house.
Her heart had skipped a beat as she recognised him, and then made up for the loss by hammering at her chest as if it would burst. She was too close to him to turn around and flee without him noticing, so she had just walked on ahead, her head rigidly bowed so that he would not see her face.
‎
“Amara,” she heard him call as she walked past.
“Good evening,” she responded, and against her best intentions, slowed down, and raised up her head. He looked different that evening, and more handsome. He was dressed in a white safari suit and matching white shoes. A white singlet peeped from above the first button of the safari suit. She could see curly strands of jet black hair above the singlet. A massive gold chain and pendant glittered on his chest. He had a small version of the same chain on his right wrist and his fingers hosted a startling collection of gold rings. On his left hand was a gold wristwatch. 
Everything about him gleamed and Amara had felt a little hollow in her stomach. He walked up to her and she felt self conscious in her shabby clothing. She looked around. It would not be long before the news went round that she was seen with a man. And on her street, news never went round for long in its pure version. Every mouth recasting the story was bound to add its own seasoning to make the account a little sweeter in the ear. She was guilty of the same sin in the past. The cursory glances she was getting from passersby and all those people loitering about on the street pretending not to be looking was not lost on her. 
“I know how uncomfortable you must feel, talking to me here like this, but take my number and call me,” he said, as if he had read her mind. He called out the numbers, twice as they walked. And she had nodded to tell him she had it. He turned around and left after she had repeated it correctly to his hearing, and promised to write it in the exercise book she held so that she would not forget. Amara could barely conceal her excitement as she skipped home. 
“Take my phone, flash him now now let him call,” Ada said, thrusting her Nokia phone in Amara’s face. 

“Isn’t it too early?” Amara hesitated, but collected the phone. 

“It’s actually getting late, Amara,” Ada scowled. “He must have been expecting your call for ages now.” “We only parted few minutes ago,” Amara insisted as she dialed his number. The name “JulioCeasar” appeared on the face of the phone.
 “Ah, sister? Do you know this man?” Amara queried, surprised and suddenly afraid. Ada had gone ashen, looked flustered for a second, and then quickly gathered her wits about her. 

“This is a small town biko”, she scowled, snatching her phone from Amara’s hand.  

“The man looked for me and found me. That is how much he wants you,” she explained, a worldly look on her face. Amara sat on the floor of their room and watched her elder sister folding away the clothes that they had washed earlier in the day, and something told her everything was not alright. 
“It seems you want to be poor for the rest of your life, and continue to use rags as sanitary pad,” Ada spat into her sister’s thoughts. The stench from the overflowing septic tank behind the building wafted into the room and Amara’s stomach rebelled. While her sister nagged, she placed her palms against the cold floors on which she sat, lifted her buttocks and passed a silent gulf of gas. She felt a little relieved then, and better able to listen to Ada’s homily. 
“Amara, this is no time to start doing baby-baby or nice-nice o’. You are to sound like a big girl for him o’. 

Amara was still thinking up what to say and what to not say when the phone rang shrilly in the still night atmosphere. 
“Hello,” Ada said sweetly into the mouth piece, giving Amara a scalding look. 

“No, this is not Amara, its Ada.” Amara’s heartbeat was uncontrollable. There was silence for a second. 

“No, nothing dey happen,” Ada had quipped and laughed for a while. “Oh, okay, let me give the phone to her,” she said finally. And after surviving another glare that was capable of bleaching her delicate skin, Amara collected the phone from her sister’s outstretched hand. She was stiff and awkward at first, but his voice which sounded like honey over the phone soon melted the icicles of fear and suspicion that stood guard around her heart. Fifteen minutes later, Amara was chatting and laughing freely away, basking in the klieg lights of Ada’s approving smile and ‘thumbs up’ signals. 

“It all depends on where you want me to meet you…” she heard herself saying, her eyes seeking more approval from her twenty one year old sister. She got it, and she felt grown up and emancipated, like a cauliflower that had been carefully harvested by an unseen hand, shaken gently but thoroughly until its roots were free from every modicum of inhibition. 
*** 
Children always looked forward to the rains. With it came the insects they called ‘Aku’. When they were younger, Ada told her that the insects were stupid to go so close to the fluorescent tubes, because after the bulbs burned them, they always needed a cold bath which they never survived. Amara and the other children led by Ada always placed a bucket of water underneath the light, captured the hapless insects in their hundreds, shared them among themselves, fried them, and enjoyed their snacks in bed at night. Amara watched as children still clad only in panties after enjoying a bath in the rain squatted beside a bucket of water while the biggest among them divided the spoil. She wished she could be like them again, concerned only by the number of Aku she would crunch that night.

 “So, you are pregnant!” Ada repeated aloud before Amara’s soapy right palm flew to cover her elder sister’s mouth, as if to push the words back in. Amara’s big eyeballs roved frantically to see if anyone was about. Ada looked too. They should not have bothered. They were alone in the backyard where they sat doing the dishes. Their only companions were the children making happy noises and waging a renewed war against another influx of frantic insects.

 “You should hide your face in aja-uro, Amara. Shame is too good for you!” Ada had hissed, stood up, wiped her wet hands on the seat of her flowered gown and retreated into the house. Amara just sat there, her head bent. Julius had been wonderful. He had shown her a world she never knew before now. His pocket was bottomless and his hands never stopped going there. The first thing he had done was to buy her new clothes – all the new styles girls favored today, designed to reveal more than cover. 

“I can’t wear these things,” she had protested, admiring her own curves in his bedroom mirror as she sampled the clothes. 

“Yes you can, you are wearing them now,” he had laughed from the bed, his hand inside his boxer shorts, cradling his member. She showed the clothes to Ada when she got home, and they agreed she would keep them in her bag as she left for school every morning, and change into them after school, to go see Julius. Every morning, she was ashamed of herself as she snuck the clothes sheathed in a dark nylon bag into her back pack. 
As if it helped assuage or hide her guilt, she always shoved it underneath her books. Several times she had almost confided her new relationship in Ndidi her best friend, but she had restrained herself with both hands. Ndidi would never approve, and then her secret would be just like the fowl’s anus – prone to revelation at the instance of little wind. The idea had worked like magic. Even she almost never recognized herself after 2pm everyday. The curvy little vixen who emerged from the “Ladies” at Mr. Biggs on Okpara Avenue with a Darling-Yaki wig hiding her low-cut hair, and FashionFair eyeshadow on her pretty face was never the timid school girl who had walked in earlier, clutching a nylon bag. 
Not that anyone really paid her any attention in the place anyway. The waiters were always too busy with hungry customers. Only one young security man always stared at her, but he too never said anything, he dared not. The next miracle Julius wrought was the purchase of her JAMB scratch card. While her father had been wriggling and nagging and threatening hell and brimstone if she dared fail and waste his money, (money he was yet to piece together), Julius had bought her JAMB form with just a phone call to his friend whom he said worked at the bank where they sold the card. 
A cleaner from the bank had brought the card to them in Julius’ apartment, and Julius had counted the money, four thousand, five hundred naira – the five hundred naira was for the boy’s transportation – all in crisp one hundred naira notes. As he retreated, overjoyed and thanking an amused Julius effusively, the gangly boy had tripped over a drinking stool in the middle of the living room and Amara and Julius had burst into laughter at his exit. Amara had hugged Julius when he handed the hitherto elusive card over to her. 
“I just love to see you happy, obi’m,” he cooed as she plastered his face with kisses. In just a little while, it was amazing the transformation she had gone through. She was bolder, sexier, better groomed and more mature than all her peers, all thanks to Julius. He had also given her money for the registration at a cybercafé, and promised to get her into a special centre where everyone was guaranteed scores that would guarantee admission into universities of their choices. As Amara dressed up again that evening in her blue and white school uniform, she suddenly could not wait to be through with secondary school, and get into the university where like Ada she would finally be free, free to live her life with Julius. 
She had glanced at Julius who laid asleep in bed, a look of contentment on his handsome face as he snored, and for the umpteenth time, Amara wondered what he was doing with her. He was a young man who had everything it took to date any of the more sophisticated Enugu girls, yet he had chosen her. Maybe it was because she was a virgin, and he had been the one who broke her? But then, he was not to know she was a virgin when he was pursuing her. She sighed, picked up the money he left on the dresser for her and had snuck quietly out of the apartment without waking him up. 
“You see what I was telling you, eh?” Ada had bristled in her best ‘I-told-you-so’ voice when Amara had given her sister the news. 
“You see now – and you were there behaving like baby – baby Kingsway. You have to use what you have to get what you want, nwanne’m.” 

Their father had coughed in the living room, an exaggerated cough that was pregnant. And the girls had fallen silent and gone to bed. Those days with Julius were the best she had spent in her entire seventeen years – until the month her period had ceased. She had waited for a pensive two weeks and when she could not bear it any longer, had stolen to a roadside laboratory to run a pregnancy test. She had heard many girls in school talk about the place at New Haven. 
The laboratory attendant had been nasty. A girl her age or a little older, she had worn an irritated look on her pox-marked face as she asked for the patient’s name. There was no way Amara was going to use her real name, and the receptionist had snickered when she said her name was ‘Esther Aja.” The laboratory scientist was a fair, fat, short  man with a face as round as a ball. Amara decided he was either angry or in a hurry the way he had tied her slender bicep too tight with a green rubber tourniquet, slapped her forearm in something akin to rage and stuck a needle in the first vein that responded. 
Amara watched as the syringe filled with her blood. The man had withdrawn the needle at a surprisingly more sedate speed, given her a wet cotton wool to press to her forearm, and eased the extracted blood from the syringe into a vial. He had disappeared behind a dirty blue curtain for what seemed like a lifetime before emerging again armed with a white envelope and a dirty smile. The long hiss of the receptionist followed Amara down the stairs and into the street filled with blaring horns and speeding car headlights.

(To be continued)  

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Oluwafunminiyi Omojola is a writer. Follow him on twitter
@ooluwafunminiyi








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Short Story: Life Is Wicked — Amara | By : Oluwafunminiyi Omojola

They sat beside each other on the cold cement floor, their legs stretched out in front of them. Amara stared at hers. They were fat and lumpy, like that of a woman who had given birth to all the children in her belly. And even though her neighbor was further gone, Aniekan’s legs were skinny, like the rest of her. She had bony shoulders and hands that were long and thin like tree branches. Her palms were clasped over her big stomach, a network of green veins visible on them. Her head was hung on one side, an absent look in her eyes.
“Are you okay, Aniekan?” Amara asked. The other girl did not respond. She just blinked. She had barely spoken a word in almost two days. She just sat there and stared, and blinked. Amara got up from her sitting position and looked out of the window they had been sitting underneath. It was evening, yet the sun sat in its usual spot in the sky like a cripple. A large hawk crossed its smiling face and punctuated the raucous laughter ringing in the July heat with loud squawks. Amara’s eyes went from the skies to the teenage girls in the compound. They were busy – washing clothes, sweeping, clearing debris, chatting and laughing. Here was a nightmare. 
She had thought that it was only children who could find happiness in dark places. But she had come here to find that she was wrong. She was in a place where happiness had been wrested from the hands of every inmate, yet, life went on as if all was well. She wondered about her family. Had they stopped searching for her? 
Had her father, after the first few frantic weeks, come to terms with the idea that his daughter was missing for good, shrugged and retreated behind his glasses and endless newspapers? What about Ada? Had she moved on with her life, with her provocative dressing and the reckless use of sexual allure to fund her life? 
Her mind came back to the present. She could barely hear what they said because the louvers were shut, but one look at Oma, the tough round girl with woolly hair who sat on the pavement told Amara that they were having a good time. Oma who rarely mingled with the others was smiling indulgently at the chit chat around her, filing her nails and spitting intermittently into a gutter.  Her spittle was startlingly white, compared to her charcoal black complexion. 
“See this mumu? Na one thousan’ them take fuck you?” Amara heard Oma guffaw, pointing the piece of metal in her hand at Chinenye, an awkward girl with a long, bird-like face that was guarded on either side by hair that had been woven taut in black thread. Chinenye’s back was turned to the window but Amara could see she was bent over a bowl filled with clothes, washing vigorously. The water in the bowl was a dark color and had little lather. Beside her gritty heels that were marred by Y-shaped cracks was a mashed remnant of green bar soap. 
All the other girls laughed at Oma’s jokes, more out of deference than funniness. They all showed Oma a lot of respect because she was a veteran. They said that she had produced up to four – all of them male, and she was carrying the fifth. Amara suddenly felt dizzy. Slowly, her buttocks against the wall, she slid back into a sitting position, squeezed her eyes shut and palmed her forehead where a turbulence was brewing. It felt as if her brain was in a vortex, and something pounded in her head till she felt as if her skull was readying to implode. Her second hand cradled her swollen stomach. An inferno had traveled down there, singed it’s way through her chest. She burned all over. Tears fell freely from her eyes. 

“I have saved some money. Hundred thousan’,” Aniekan’s voice broke through Amara’s pain.

 “After this one, I will leave and never come back,” she sniffed. Minutes later, when she felt better, Amara turned to her friend who had produced three before, all of them female, and was now carrying the fourth. 

“Don’t you worry about them?” Amara whispered. “I mean, that you may never meet them again, never know who they turn out to be?” 
Aniekan sighed. “Well, sometimes…” she replied in a pensive tone. She looked as though she wanted to add something else, but then shrugged it away. 

“You should do the same too. Have two or three, save some money, then go an’ start your life afresh”. She faced Amara, and with a serious look in her eye said, “Obodo bu igwe, and life is wicked. You have to use what you have to get what you want, nwanne’m.” It was a funny thing. Those were Ada’s exact words to her that night, six months ago.            

               *** 
The first time Amara met him, he walked up to her in the middle of a busy road. He later told her that he had been driving past when he saw her, standing, a black nylon bag hanging from her right hand like a wrecking ball. Her attention was riveted on the oncoming traffic from her side of the road and so she did not notice him stare, nod, apply the brakes, pull up and turn off the ignition. It was when she had safely made it to the carriage divider that she saw him, crossing also, walking towards her, a small smile on his tiny lips. 
She did not recognize him, and so had tried to make way for him, but he just stood there. He was very dark in complexion and young, around twenty two. He had rich dark eyebrows that arched themselves up in worry. His nose was small and pointed, and his lower lips were pink. He was dressed in a richly embroidered black kaftan, like a mallam, despite the fact that he was obviously Ibo.
 “What is it?” she had asked, as cars whizzed past behind him. “Nothing,” he replied. 
“I saw you, again. And I decided I would not let you go, this time.” “I don’t understand,” Amara said, more relieved than flattered. 
To say she was scared was an understatement. Enugu was a dangerous town. She had heard many stories of rape and kidnap that began romantically, by a stranger walking up to a young woman, chatting her up and befriending her till things spiraled out of control. They crossed the road together. 
“Can we talk inside my car?” he asked, pointing with the silvery snout of the key in his hand at a black, shiny Mercedes parked on the roadside. Amara did not know much about cars but she did not need a seer to tell her that what she was being invited into was an expensive automobile. She shook her head and kept on walking. 

“Did you have to cross the road? What do you want?” she asked, beginning to feel flattered by the attention. 

“Yes, I was afraid if I did not, you might disappear, again. I had to.” She looked up for a second and saw a look of fondness festering on his fascinating face as he described first seeing her on Alo Street, two days before. She remembered the day he spoke about. She had gone there to see Uloma, her friend who had just had an abortion, and was very ill. Ulo had tried to keep the fact of the pregnancy from everyone, but when the quack doctor at New Haven had nearly taken her life, the world got to know, as her father aptly put it, ‘of the secret soup she was cooking that burned down the house’. 

“I tried to follow you but you turned a corner and just disappeared,” he concluded. She watched him throw his long legs in front of him as they walked. She felt small beside him, barely reaching his elbows, but she liked the air that surrounded him. It reeked of easy comfort. He had an assuredness about him, the kind of assurance that came when one had money, charm and time at their disposal. Amara looked at the gold-plated face of her leather strap wristwatch. It was a quarter to seven. Ada would have started to worry about her. Her elder sister had sent her to buy Garri. She had had to go farther because the aging woman who owned the food stuff kiosk next door had closed up and entered her house. Amara did not blame Mama Ngozi. The activities of the hoodlums whom Enugu bred by the thousand had no respect for either age or meager holdings. 

“So, what do you want?” she asked again. “Your number, thank you” he smiled charmingly. His teeth were neatly arranged, and sickeningly white, like the flesh of boiled egg. He already had his phone in his left hand, his thumb hovering above the number Zero on the lighted key pad. 

“I don’t have a phone,” Amara responded, truthfully and came to a stop. She was close to the house already and had no intentions of letting a stranger, no matter how handsome he was know where she lived – at least not yet. 

“Give me your sister’s own,” he said, a little too knowingly. 
“How do you know I have a sister?” she queried. 
“I was hoping so,” he had laughed. “You can’t give me your brothers’ own for obvious reasons,” he explained and chuckled. Amara thought she detected a note of nervousness in his tone. 
“Well, I don’t have a brother, or a sister,” Amara had lied. His smile had dimmed a little in wattage then. 
“So, how do I see you again?” he rasped. 
“I don’t know. I really must go now. You can see me anywhere, I live on this street. Please stop following me,” she said, sounding a little desperate even in her own ears. 
“You will not tell me where or how I can see you then?” he asked, straightening to his full height and pocketing his phone. 

“I live on this street,” she replied. “Okay, at least tell me your name, bikonu…” he pleaded. 

“No,” she responded and started to walk away. She had been a little relieved when he did not follow her, yet as she walked, a lot of thoughts assailed her. Had she been too difficult? No, she did not think so. The city was brimming with rich and handsome young men who fed on young, innocent girls. They used and dumped them, sometimes raped them or used them for money rituals. On that score, she decided she was right to have been wary and not divulged any information about herself. 
“Information is key,” her father always said. 
“With the right information, a man without hands can open a locked door.” She always wondered how that was possible but never asked him to explain. Coincidentally, she also always considered herself a locked door, when it came to boys. 
“Until you are ready to get married, you must remain a closed door,” was a mantra Nne had, like hot balm onto a painful sprain, massaged into the heads of her two daughters before she had passed, two years ago. So it was vital she hid information well then, until she felt ready. Yet, something told her that that young man had meant no harm. It was that same treacherous something that had tried to pull words out of her mouth, but she had restrained herself. 
All through their short liaison, he had not tried to touch her.  In the past, she had had to slap many a hand from across her supple waist. That was standard Enugu toasting procedure. But he had been different, urbane and gentlemanly, even using words like ‘thank you and please’. Suddenly she wished she had been more liberal. She felt a little sad he had not tried to follow her. She glanced behind her but found he was gone. 
The ‘yard’ in which she lived in Emene was bustling with near nude children when she stepped in. A sharp pain coursed through her as she sidestepped the happy brood skipping around the sandy compound. They were a blessed lot, weren’t they?  For them, ignorance was pure bliss. Amara did not see how anyone who lived in such squalor could experience a second of happiness. She greeted Mama Emeka who squatted by the entrance to her one room apartment, bathing her toddler in a basin. The boy had rings of lather all over his body and was running his palms over his face in hurried circular motions. 
“Emeka, come take biscuit when you finish you hear?” Amara invited him. He was a nice and quiet kid and they got along very well. He was the only one who shared her reflections and angst. Whenever she was most depressed, he would come pattering into the room she shared with her sister, cuddle up beside her and suck his thumb. She would tell him stories, first of the tortoise, then of grandeur – how there was a better life out there somewhere waiting to be lived. Many times, he was content to fall asleep in her room until his mother would come for him. ‎

“I come,” the boy responded, his eyes still shut tight. She found her father seated at the entrance of their two room apartment. If she were asked to paint a picture of the man, there was a classic image of him that would jump into her head. It was of him as he sat, reading from a newspaper. His bald head shone brightly under the glare of the electric bulb hanging directly above his head. He wore a white singlet that dipped into a slack “U” at the chest, revealing the bones of his thoracic region. Steel rimmed spectacles perched over a small nose, underneath which a chewing stick danced with vigor. He wiggled long, spindly legs wrapped by a faded red ankara wrapper. 

“Nno papa,” Amara greeted as she walked past the seventy-something year old man. 

“Ada has been looking for you,” her father responded in a voice made gruff by snuff. He barely took his eyes off the newspaper. ‎
“Ehen? I went to buy the Garri she asked for,” Amara responded, raising the dusty door blind and disappearing into the parlor. Another shot of pain zipped through her like electric current. She eyed the room with distaste. It was bare, and the bright lighting made the fact all the more glaring. She eyed the two single chairs and a settee stationed in a rectangle around the room. The seats were clothed in purple and the chairs all dipped in the middle. It was better to seat on the floor than on those chairs. The settee was better because instead of dipping in the middle, it’s seats were lumpy, undulating. 
On the floor was a tattered blue rubber carpet, matching the blue walls. The focal point of the room was the wooden cabinet on which sat a small television, and beside it a transistor radio. The other compartments of the cabinet were littered with odds and ends like exercise books and disused Tiger batteries. In the middle of the room was a rectangular table, and on top of that laid open her Government text book, a jotter and her Schneider biro. She had been studying for final examinations before Ada had sent her on the errand. 
“Sister,'” she called out needlessly as she approached the kitchen. 
“Ogini? Why are you shouting my name?” Ada responded and they had both laughed at the mutual joke, their voices bouncing off the walls of the long, cluttered corridor. Surprisingly, Ada was alone in the kitchen. At that time of the night, there would usually be at least three women in the kitchen, in different stages of culinary activity. 
Ada sat on a low stool and was bent over their kerosene stove, stirring a pot of Ogbono soup. Since Nne had died, Ada had done most of the cooking before she had gone to the University. But Ada was home because the schools had been closed down. The lecturers had embarked on what they referred to as ‘the mother of the mother of all strikes”. 
Amara gently dropped the nylon bag in her hand on the floor beside her sister. 

“What took you so long?” Ada asked without looking up. Amara explained. And then on impulse, she added: “One guy came to talk to me as I came home.” ‎
“Ibiakwa, who is he?” she asked, a big smile of surprise and obvious approval on her face as she fiddled with the knot on the nylon bag. 
Amara told her the story. “Ha, why didn’t you tell him your name, nu?” Ada muttered. She was trying to undo the knot with her teeth. ‎

“I don’t know… I don’t know him sister.” “Hmm, okay, biko when next you see him, call me, let me meet him. He sounds like a good, responsible person.” And lowering her voice, “And rich too. Amara, you know we need money. You are no longer a child.” “What are you saying sister? That I start sleeping with men for money?” Amara’s eyes widened in alarm. Ada hurriedly clamped a palm over her younger sister’s mouth. ‎

“Mechionu ebaa, stupid girl” she growled, eyeing the teenager sternly before she let go of her, turned and started to pour Garri into the pot of steaming water. After they had eaten, and turned in for the night, Ada faced her younger sister as they laid on the narrow mattress they shared. 

“Amara, you are no longer a child. You need to outgrow all these childlike things that you do. Don’t you want to get married someday?” “I do, but not now. I still have to go to school.” “School!” 

Ada laughed. “You are aware if we are to work by papa’s clock, I have to graduate before you ever can dream of entering university? All things being equal, I will, in three years time. But with strikes and all you may have to wait longer, maybe five years?” 
What Ada said was true. Their father earned four thousand naira a month at the Government technical college where he was a janitor. Amara often wondered what kind of janitor he was since the school had no windows and all the classroom doors were missing. But it was the job that fed them. When he gave his daughter her monthly allowance of one thousand naira, their father never looked at her eyes. They all knew Ada’s life style on campus cost far more than that, but some questions were better left unasked.
 “If the ear does not hear the fart, the nostrils just may not pick its stink,” was another of their father’s favorite sayings. Amara knew her sister pallied with an assortment of Enugu’s Yahoo boys. Her current boyfriend was Lucky, a final year Botany student who drove a Nissan Pathfinder. Ada said she attracted them all with her angelic face and scandalous dress sense. She was proud of her wide hips and round buttocks which held men spellbound, but a sixth sense always told Amara that what bound her sister and these boys together was more sinister than mere sex. 
The way they ‘hailed’ her was suspicious. Also, Ada received her romantic phone calls in the room, uninhibited by Amara’s presence. But there were also calls she left the room to receive in the backyard, and they lasted long hours. Amara listened dreamily to her sister’s voice telling her to grow up and to take charge of her destiny at a young age. Ada told her how she was lucky to have blossomed so fast that at seventeen she was already attracting men with money, with her full breasts and wide behind, while her mates still desperately stuck their chests out and hung their behinds in the air to attract attention – and all to no meaningful avail. 
“Have you collected JAMB?” her sister asked her. She shook her head in the darkness. “I have told you, you cannot work with papa’s time. This is your opportunity. You don’t have to sleep with him. Just play your cards right and all will be okay. I will show you what to do.” 
Amara dreamt of him that night. Twice. In the second dream, he met her and her sister, again in the middle of the road; and this time, he put his arms around Ada and both of them had laughed at her.
(To be continued)  
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Oluwafunminiyi Omojola is a writer. Follow him on twitter
@ooluwafunminiyi
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Short Story: Parallel lines | By: Ogechi Nwobia

“I love the way you look at me. It makes me feel truly beautiful.”
Tara’s voice was slightly husky, emotion lacing the edges.
Tade smiled coyly. His eyes were heavy with desire. With his arms still around her, he drew her closer and crushed her lips with his. His right hand traced lines down the back of her head, right to her neck. Tara shut her eyes, the sensation of his fingers sending tremors down her back. She kissed him back fiercely and paused after about a minute only to catch her breath.
“Your body is so perfect. It feels like a temple where I was made to worship.” Tade murmured. Tara giggled and slapped his arms.

“I’ve told you to stop saying that.”
“But it’s the truth. One year married to you and it still feels like I’m dreaming, you know. You are perfection. And I’m talking body, mind, personality, everything.”

Tara smiled.

“You are so poetic.”

“I’m not even trying.”

Tara gently withdrew herself from his embrace.
“I’ve got a flight to catch luv.
Tade stepped forward and kissed her neck, his arms instinctively going around her again.
“I know. But I wish you didn’t. The frequent trips, they make me miss you a lot.”

Tara indulged him for a few seconds before pulling away. She grabbed her top off the corner of his bed and hurriedly threw it on.
“I love you Tade. You are everything. And if this wasn’t work, I swear I’d stay here in bed with you all day.”

She kissed him on the forehead and walked into the bathroom.
Tade sighed and ran his hand over his head. He sat on the bed and drew his laptop close to himself.
Tara walked back into the room a few minutes later, light make-up on, hair neatly in place.
“You should put on a shirt you know. That chest is err… very distracting.”
Tade chuckled and pushed the laptop away.
“Come here darling.”‎ Tara grinned.‎
“Not on your life.”

She pulled out a small bag from the closet and walked to the door.

“32 hours. I’ll be back. Then we can pop a bottle of champagne and I’ll make that fish sauce you really like with fried yams and we can do any and everything you want.”


Tade met her at the door in one swift movement.

“And make a baby perhaps?” Tara smiled

“I’m still not ready yet darling. But we can talk about it when I get back.”

Tade’s face fell.

“Alright then. Have a safe trip babe.”
He kissed her one more time on the lips and walked back into the room.
***
Tara walked out of the airport in Abuja shading her eyes with her hands. She smiled as she spotted the young man with a little girl on his arm and she walked briskly towards them.
“Hey princess!!”
She plastered the little girl’s face with kisses and the young man who carried the child smiled.
“Hey babe.”
Tara looked at the man’s face and grinned.
“Hey heartbeat.”
She kissed him lightly and then lifted the little girl from his arms. He took Tara’s bag and they walked together towards the car park.

“I missed you so much Chris. And Adaora too.”

“You should be home more often then.”

Tara stopped in her tracks but Chris continued walking. She opened her mouth and shut it a few times then joined him at the car.
“You seem rather stiff. What’s wrong?”

Chris started the car and sighed.
“2 years Tara. 2 years. You’ve been on the road every single month. Adaora barely recognizes you as her mum. And me? I’m not even sure what we are. You stall on marriage, you blame it all on work and you make it seem like you do not want to be with me as much as I want to be with you.”

“Chris. You’re busy too. You work late hours, you claim you understand the importance of my job but lately it’s been looking as though you want me to put my life on hold for you.”

“I’m not asking you to put your life on hold Tara. I’m asking that you settle with me here. Let’s build our lives together. We have a kid. We’re crazy about each other. Why can’t we just be together here?”

“Why can’t we just not fight every time I come around?”

The little girl began to cry and Tara rocked her gently.
“I’m not trying to fight Tee. I’m just saying I want more. You’re making me look like a single father. That is just so weird.”

Tara sighed and remained quiet. Chris did not say anything either until they got to their destination.
As soon as Tara was settled in the living room, she picked up her phone and typed out a text message.
“I think I’m going to lose it. Chris is talking marriage again.”

A response came in shortly.
“You lost it a long time ago. Tired of telling you this. Your life is essentially two parallel lines. Find a way to make them meet.”

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Ogechi Nwobia writes flash fiction, lifemathics articles and run fiction series on her blog. She’s a people lover and a talkaholic.
Website:yougeecash.wordpress.com
Twitter: @Oge_writes






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Short Story: Retribution | By: Aminu Temitope


Juliet dried her hands in the hot blast of air from the electric dryer in the restroom when suddenly her phone chimed repeatedly. She swiped to unlock. They were twitter notifications as she tapped to view. The tweet was nightmarish!Her first reaction was surprise, then disbelief, in it’s wake, denial and finally a howling anguish. Her breaths became heavy, abruptly breaking into violent sobs that racked her petite frame.
Trails of dark lines forked beneath her eyes as tears trickled over her mascara, making a mess of a face that had, seconds ago, been a palette of faultless cosmetic art. She wiped off the rivulets and looked again at the image on her screen: It was a picture of herself utterly unclad, smiling and posing obscenely, posted on twitter!
International BadMan@MistaRomeo
This one’s for you@Honeyberry
8:00am . 04 May 2015
123 RETWEETS          50 FAVOURITES
The comments beneath the picture read:
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@TDot: @MistaRomeodamn bro!!! Respect! You the real MVP
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@MissDavido: @MistaRomeo when will all this stupid girls learn …another one again? smh
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@prettymoi: @MistaRomeoyou so stupid for tweeting this. Naija guys r just immature.
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@Omoba: @MistaRomeohaha! I have been waiting for nudes. She fine tho. Thanks boss
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Every comment she read, in her mockery or defense, shattered her very existence as it cascaded down on her; each shard trapped in the pixels of the image that threatened to pull her into its virtual recess. 
She tore her gaze off the screen, gripping the washbasin to steady herself as she suddenly became light-headed. This happened to other people, not her! She had seen obscene pictures of girls recklessly posted on twitter, some she had mocked, and others she had empathized with and waved off as fall-outs of an acrimonious break-up or feud.
But she never imagined it would happen to her. Not her! Not her! Her singular moment of indiscretion had come to haunt her. Romeo was undoubtedly the devil. How did she always end up with scumbags? His sweet words, teasing smile and ostensible sincerity had charmed her as she agreed thoughtlessly to his whims and indulgences. Her mind poured over events of that fateful day
“Let’s do something crazy? “He had said‎
“What?” she had asked

“Lets me have a nude picture of you on my phone, it would be pleasurable reminder of your awesomeness. Don’t you think?”‎


“No. I don’t want a naked picture of me taken talk less of having it on your phone,” she had retorted


“Come on ….It would be our little secret. I promise not to show anyone, guard it as a gift from you till my dying days. Pretty please” he had said teasingly
His glib tongue eventually beguiled her into throwing away her senses. Now she wished she had been more cautious. They had eventually broken off about a month ago after a heated argument in which he almost went physical on her.
Her mentions exploded as more people commented and retweeted. Soon the picture would be on every blog, it would be talked about for days, if not weeks. The wounds left behind by this scourge would fester forever. Nothing would remain the same again. By God, this would be the last time any man ridiculed her, she swore.
From the murkiest depths of her mind, a sinister thought spawned, inexplicably calming her as there was a sudden clarity of what she needed to do next. She wiped her eyes again, sniffing as she stared into the mirror hung on the wall. Her eyes were red but her face was menacingly placid.
She checked her watch it was 3:00pm.Good. In quick mechanical movements, she cleaned her face, reapplied her make-up, squirming her skirt into place and smoothing her hair. She left the restroom and strutted down the hallway of the bank where she worked, past her cubicle and towards the exit, avoiding glances from her colleagues who noticed a nuance in her disposition. Had they seen the picture? Soon it wouldn’t matter.
She made for her Toyota Matrix in the parking lot. Romeo, any moment from now, should be leaving his office at Ahmadu Bello Avenue. If she drove fast enough she could reach him before he left. The car hurtled dangerously along the stretch from Ojuelegba to Victoria Island. Blaring horns and the squawks from passers-by occasionally jarred her out of her reverie as she steered with half-attention
Parked at a distance from the entry of his work place, she waited patiently, like a lion waiting to pounce on its prey, her loathing of him growing stronger; strengthening her resolve.
A security guard, noticing a distraught lady seated in a car, approached.
“Madam any problem”

“No problem sir, I am waiting for someone” she said in the sweetest voice she could muster and he left. She waited


3:20pm
3:25pm
3:30pm
Then she spotted him exiting the front gate and he was alone in a benign twist of fate. Her grip on the steering wheel was deathly, cold fury seeped through her veins as her gaze was riveted on her unwitting victim. In a paroxysm of hatred, rage and hurt, she slammed hard on the gas pedal, revving the car into piercing screeches as it started murderously at him. She could see his petrified expression change to recognition and then horror as he frantically sought to evade the collision. It was too late.
A loud shrill from his lips was abruptly cut short as she ran him over, distinct cracking sounds could be heard, testimony of crushed bones. She halted a few meters from the body; peering back at him as he grappled for life .His mangled body, scantily cloaked by his now ripped shirt was suffused with dirt and crimson. He soon lay motionless.
Terrified cries of on-lookers with their hands clasped together on their heads rented the air. Some rushed to the scene; others stood in horror. Her mind was suddenly tranquil as she zoomed off at full speed,unbuckling her seatbelt as she veered,head on, towards the trunk of a tree by the roadside.
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Aminu Temitope is a brilliant writer. Her stories have been published on several platforms including naijastories. 
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Short Story: Awaiting | By: Sueddie Agema

Oche had been in this position before, but he was a very confident man and was therefore prepared. He had faced several similar circumstances so though this was new in its own right, he remained calm. He even thought that being in control was very normal. Then, he looked at the three men beside him in the waiting room. They were sweating profusely despite the heavy air conditioning. Okay, so he was different. 
He wondered why they were so tense. The final hearing in any case was inevitable. It was either you were discharged and acquitted or convicted. So, what was the fuss? Anyway, they were first timers so he could understand them. With two girls behind, he was already a pro in the league.  He smiled as he engaged them in conversation and lightened the atmosphere. The tension reduced considerably but he could still notice the sweat. And to think that it was said men never cared or felt ruffled. The doctor entered the room as all the men rushed “Na my own!” Each one said claiming the smile on the doctor’s face for his personal good news.
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“Mr. Bernard Agera!” The smallish young man ran forward smiling, tears in his eyes: “Bouncing baby boy!”

 
“Jesus!” He shouted as he hugged everyone around. He started telling jokes and Oche had to wonder if this was the same man who had looked so sullen a few minutes ago. He danced around and then, remembering something, turned to the doctor whom he had forgotten in his ecstasy; “My wife, how is she?”

 

“She is very fine, Sir. She is sleeping and so is the baby.”‎

Without asking, Agera rushed to go and see his angels. “But Mr. Agera! Mr. Age…” but the energetic young man was long gone in the direction of the ward. After a while, he came back.
“Where are they?”

 

 “I was about to tell you where they were when you ran out.” The doctor said as he laughed and led Agera to his wife and child.

Oche smiled. Then, the waiting started all over again. He looked at his watch. The time was two in the afternoon. He had been here for six hours already. He turned to two of the three other remaining men who shivered. 

“Calm down, my brothers.” He tried to ease them. They looked at him from their seat as he smiled reassuringly at them.‎

 

“Thank you.” They muttered in turns, stretching a bit to reduce their continuing worry. One of the other two men who was a little less disturbed stole the interest of the men; talking about literature and politics. Why was the doctor taking so long? Three hours had now passed since they saw him last. Then, he entered with that beacon on his face.

 

“Na my own!” The four men each shouted as they rushed to the Doctor.‎

 

“Mr. Mas Udibago.” The tall bespectacled man who had been entertaining stepped forward.

 

“Yes! Shebi, I told you people.” He shook the three other men confidently as he accepted their congratulations and followed the doctor to see his wife and new child. A few minutes later, the Doctor came again and took another two men with him. Oche sat there watching as slowly sweat began to form on his body. What was happening? He looked at the remaining man beside him, questions in his eyes. The high rate of maternal deaths and infant mortality was something that no one could overlook. Most of the hospitals needed upgrading, and the staff better training. He had always wondered why this issue was on the Millennium Development Goals list. The money could be diverted into something more worthwhile, he had always argued.

 

“Even in those days before the white man, the rate had been low. With all the hospitals now, there is no need for such” he would be heard saying often to anyone who cared to listen. However, as he waited for his wife, his stance changed. It was seven o’clock when he stepped out to visit the toilet.

Oche came back to meet an empty room. The sweating now became intense accompanied with a level of tension that he had never thought possible. The praying started without any deliberate effort. All the prayers and special devotions that had long been unused came flooding  out in torrents. Though two nurses came at different times to encourage him, he kept wondering what was happening within. He asked every single person who wore a uniform. The latest person he asked, a security officer, looked at him in confusion. The officer tried to calm him for a while before disappearing. It was three o’clock. He said his Divine Mercy prayers which he had hitherto totally lost faith in. His eyes were wide and bloodshot but he had no clue of this – neither did he care. His mind was fixed on more important issues. Then, by four thirty on the dot as his watch proclaimed, the Doctor came in. Oche heaved a sigh of relief as he rushed to him.
“Doctor” That single word, sentence and question, in itself, holding all the expectation and suspense that had welled up in his body.
“We tried our best, Sir…”

 

“No!” Oche shouted, his entire world going dark and crashing all around him.

“Cool it, Sir. We tried at normal delivery but your wife is going to need a CS. We want you to sign some papers and we would also need some blood.” Oche experienced some relief and finished siging the forms quickly. His blood didn’t match his wife’s. He quickly gave a nurse, who had just come in, some money for the blood that would be bought from the blood bank for the transfusion. It had gone worse than he had ever imagined it would. Oche cried,, he remembered how he had often argued with his wife on the sex of the baby. She had said girl number three to which he had always vehemently refused, “Opposed!” He had even bought all the clothes for the baby boy and now… It was looking as if none of them would make it. He cried to himself. In his tears, a little slumber came. A hand tapped him as he woke up with a start. It was a doctor, though a different one from yesterday.
“We could not operate your on wife again.” The tension started mounting again as Oche opened his mouth about to scream. Then, he noticed the smile on the doctor’s face. 

“She delivered naturally, a beautiful baby boy.” Oche stood speechless as he looked at the Doctor in shock. The tears became of warmth and happiness as he shook the doctor’s hand vehemently. “Please, Sir, I still need my hand if I am to continue in this profession.”

 
“Oh, I am so sorry.” Oche said as he smiled his thanks. God! God! God! He opened his mouth to ask the doctor if he could see them when the doctor’s beeper came on.

“Sorry, Sir, there is an emergency. I have to run.” He rushed off.

 

“But… but… but…”‎

A nurse rushed to Oche after a while and explained everything. The wife of the last man who had been with Oche was having a shortage of blood. Unfortunately, her husband’s blood did not match hers too and to make matters worse, the blood bank was empty. She concluded that the blood he had earlier purchased was the only remedy to the pregnant woman’s life. Oche was irritated that they were wasting so much time. He did not need to think twice as he gave his permission for the blood to be used.

 

“It is little wonder there is a high level of maternal deaths.” What if he had been absent? That might have spelt another mother and child. He shuddered at the thought as he imagined the several mothers and might-have-been mothers who had lost their lives to such negligence and absence. So many children too! His mind went to the MDG item again and mentally noted that he ought to get involved as soon as possible. The operation proved successful as the woman was successfully delivered, too. Her husband came in and knelt before Oche;

 

“God bless you, Sir. This is your child, Sir. His name is yours. God bless you!”‎

Oche answered and charged him to be a bit quiet. Soon the doctor came in for the last time to take the two men to their respective loves. It was just then that Oche remembered that he hadn’t called to find out how his children at home were doing. Anything might have happened to them. And yes, how could he have forgotten how excruciatingly hungry he was? He yawned as he moved forward, and fell.
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Su’eddie Vershima Agema won the Association of Nigerian Authors’ Joint Prize for Poetry 2014. He blogs at http://sueddie.wordpress.com, @sueddieagema on Twitter. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Short Story: Flawed | By: Morountodun

They say not everyone will like you no matter how good you are, but I’ve never met anyone who didn’t love me at first sight. It’s mostly about my looks at first, which hardly a day goes by that I don’t get complimented for (I’m 5″9, slim and a ‘yummy shade of ebony’ as my friend Clara puts it), but anyone who’s ever heard me sing adores me even more.
The whole of City of Hope Church practically stand at attention every time I step up to the mic, and even I feel a slight tremble listening to taped recordings of my performances.
“Christy, that was a powerful ministration, it really touched me.” “I wasn’t going to testify, but after that song sister Christy sang, I realized…”
I don’t know how I do it, I do know that it’s all God. Every single person in the choir is talented, but having the highest number of testifiers anytime I lead praise and worship takes a special grace that I’m forever grateful for.
Young and old, male and female, they walk up to me to tell me how much God has blessed them through the songs that I sing. And that keeps me going. Knowing that I’m touching lives, giving hope, healing people of their hurt and pains, relieves me of mine and makes me put my heart and soul into it. When I get on stage, I simply let the words flow from the very core of me. I could’ve just had an argument with mum or another bout of constant bickering with my siblings, but nothing else matters anymore at that moment except for whatever words God’s put in my mouth, which I deliver to the best of my ability.
Funny how some people see me and imagine that I’ve got this great voice and nothing to worry about. All they see is this beautiful Christian who has everything going for her. I hear other girls talk about how they wish they could be me and I cringe, wishing they hadn’t said it. It kills me inside. Truth is, nobody really knows what it’s like to be me. They don’t know how I secretly hate any girl my brother has ever dated for no reason in particular, or my sickle cell younger sister for having all of our parents’ attention most of the time.
Many times I’ve pretended to miss seeing dad ogle the widow next door and shrugged it off like I didn’t know there was something going on between them that mum doesn’t know about. What about the time uncle Junior (We call him that but I really don’t know how we are actually related) slid his fat, sweaty palm up my blouse and I never mentioned it to anyone? Oh, and there’s Kay. He plays the keyboard in church. What no one knows is that we engage in various forms of play together. Alone.
The State Musical Contest is up in a few weeks and I’m in with unflinching support from everyone around me. It’s taken years of training and now I’m finally eighteen and of age to enter. All I have to do is make it to the top at the zonal eliminations–which I’m confident that I will–and I’m on my way to making it big time.
Professional brush-up and a record deal with mega bucks to go with it…this girl is going to be a superstar! Many more girls will look up to me and want to be me. Only Lord knows I’m not all that. ‎
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Morountodun is a writer and a microbiology ‎ graduate of University of Ilorin.
Twitter: @Morountosweet
http://morountosweet.wordpress.com
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Short Story: Selma | By: Damore Ali

It is our final year dinner. I look beautiful, I am sure… but I feel different and uncomfortable, more than I have felt my whole life. I am not the barbie faced girl in this Rukky Simone’s gown and Louboutins with body shapers hugging the life out of me. No. I am that tiny soul screaming for release beneath all of this packaging that make me tonight. But I embrace this one time invasion because I want Martins to see me. 
Never in my life have I thought to become someone else for a man. Truly, I used to have so much faith in the incidence of love with someone who would look beyond my limp, make-up-less face, feebleness and clumsiness to the amazing being that I am. But after a whole 25 years of waiting endlessly for that special moment, and a never-ending tirade of someone who matters so much- Mum-  telling you you’ll never get a man looking as you do, you learn to give change a try. 
So I let Salma make me her.
Down at the hall, there is so much activity going on around me, none of which I am interested in. I am seated at this table with Salma’s course mates, staring nauseously at the empty seat beside me, hoping it has been saved for Martins. I take my precious care to do everything because mama’s voice keeps ringing in my head- ‘sit like a lady, look at Salma! Eat like a lady, don’t rush it, Can’t you see Salma?! Don’t focus on your food, make eye contact with your talk partner intermittently. Ask Salma. Be witty, throw in jokes, just like Salma. Smile a lot. Smile, but don’t shoot your teeth out like that.’ There’s so much to learn from Salma, I can’t keep up. But my heart bleeds, for if the person who bore me cannot accept me, who would?
I master my gestures as quickly as possible, watching Salma from the corner of my eye so I can learn better; but when Martins finally arrives, the whole practice feels like a Shamble. I realise I can look and act like her, but I can’t be her. I can’t even strike up a conversation after the casual hello he passed my way. I am confused. I forgot to ask what Salma would do and say if seated next to her long- time crush. 
I try for a natural performance, and silence is the best I can put up.The dress, make- up and everything wouldn’t even make him pass a second glance. I feel broken within. I look at Salma now, so comfortable in her skin. She is everything I have practised for the past one hour, but it’s easy to tell a natural from one who is trying too hard to be real. 
I begin to wonder maybe if I had come through as myself tonight, maybe it would have made a difference. Or maybe not? Maybe it is just a me- thing. Mum has said I am not the kind of girl a man falls for. Quickly, I make my exit from the hall for I fear I might be tempted to strip for release, if I spend one more minute there. Ignoring the many eyes that follow me and my limp through the door, I hail a cab and head home. 
In my room, I am in a world of my own, trying to reconnect with the Selma I think I know. I hear that at birth, we are born blank… and the world informs what we do and who we become. Maybe it’s true, maybe not; I just think, importantly, we are who we are, not by choice, but by a force stronger than us. And I understand that people cannot be as patient as we are with ourselves, so I forgive mum and every mother out there who thinks a child is not good enough. And I promise myself to embrace the clumsiness and nervousness that is me, because if I am ashamed of my own product, no one will buy it. 
I reckon that Salma, my twin, is gorgeous, brilliant, charismatic, and so much the girl you beg to love; while I am something more than her exact opposite, but I won’t love her less because the world makes me feel like her shadow. I won’t love her less because mum insists she is the definition of perfect, while I am the book of flaws…
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‘Selma?’ Salma walks in on me and my thoughts now. I see the sadness in her eyes, mixed with a tinge of pity. I smile at her and hold my arms out for a hug.
‘I am fine.’ I assure her.
I feel her smile on my hair as she let’s out a sigh of relief. ‘I love you.’
‘I know darling. I love you too.’
We stay like that, locked in each others embrace for what seems like forever, and for me, that is bliss. I won’t love her less for anything in the world. I am who I am. She is who she is. And the world would have to adjust somehow, or take a leisure walk down the BRT lane. 
I am Selma, and I am fine being me. 
_
This bit was inspired by parents who erroneously, time and time again, compare one child with another child; or worse still, other children from other homes. I think it’s okay to want the best for your child, but rather than compare and hurt a child’s feelings by trying to make him/her like or better than someone else, understand him/her first and see how best you can help them be better than who they were every one time.
We are not perfect. No, far from it. But we hope that you see through our flaws to the light within us. See us. Beyond the face to the maze that makes us US.
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Damore Ali is a poet, short story writer and blogger. She has been published on several online forums including Naija ‎Stories. She is an accountant by training and a lover of good music. Damore also goes by the name Dr. 2103. She blogs at https://minisculediary.wordpress.com/
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